


The Making of a Heroine

by dimensionallyt



Category: Sefer Yehudit | Book of Judith
Genre: Domestic Violence, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:39:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimensionallyt/pseuds/dimensionallyt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Judith become the heroine she is considered today?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Making of a Heroine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mimssio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimssio/gifts).



> I've tried to write this vaguely in keeping with the New Revised Standard Version translation of the Book of Judith, so if you aren't used to reading this book in translation it might seem a bit weird. I have used the Jewish tradition in not writing the name of the LORD in this story, hence G*D. 
> 
> My beta (who shall be named around reveal day), is totally awesome and did a wonderful job of catching my modern phrases. She deserves all the love and any mistakes are entirely my fault!
> 
> The first paragraph is the only grim bit in the story, so if you want to skip the domestic violence go straight to the second paragraph.
> 
> The prompt was to find out more about Judith and what gave her the idea to do what she did. I have sort of answered this, but perhaps not in the way I was supposed to. Dear mimssio, I hope it is ok and gives you a different take to the story. Season's Greetings and Happy Hannukah!

As she fell on the floor, her face stinging from her husband’s fist against her face Judith realized that this would be the last time Manasseh would hurt her. As she looked up at him with her bleeding nose and rapidly swelling eye, her resolve hardened. Her fear of the man waned and in its place was left both a great sense of peace and a peculiar pity. She pitied other women who were never able to reach her decision and she pitied him, yes her tormentor of five years, the murderer of her unborn baby, and the man who never experienced a moment of joy in what was soon to be his very short life. 

The next day she prepared his food as she always did when he was due to supervise the barley harvest. He was a rich man, as were all his tribe, but they were rich because of their slaves who toiled in the baking heat in the fields. Judith put her plan into fruition. Manasseh had always struggled with the barley harvest; he was strong and forceful and violent, but also weak in the face of the heat and physical labor. Knowing this she added some special salts to his food and she gave him less water and stronger wine. As he stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field, he was overcome by the burning heat. He took to his bed where Judith took care of him with more special salts and potions. He died in his town, Bethulia. He was buried with his ancestors and Judith began her life as a widow. 

At first her husband’s tribe wanted to enact the levirate laws and make her marry her brother-in-law. He was a brute of a man, even worse than Manasseh and so she refused. The family moaned and cajoled and bullied, “How can you, a simple woman, maintain an estate?” they said. They talked endlessly about the strength it took to keep male and female slaves in check, to tend to the livestock and fields, to store and sell the harvest and the meat. No woman could manage that they said. Judith stood firm. Manasseh’s wealth was hers, and it bought her freedom not to marry, so she wore her widow’s garb and managed her property.

She was so very grateful to G*D for her strength and Manasseh’s weakness and her newfound great wealth. She was grateful that everyone respected her for how much she seemed to fear G*D with great devotion. 

And, if there was the odd person who spurned her as a widow with no children, then she never cared nor noticed. She managed her property, tended her gardens, and enjoyed her very special life. At least she did for three years. That was when Bethulia was under siege from Holofernes and his army. The army seized all the springs so the people were thirsty. The elders of the town were, in Judith’s mind, pathetic and not worthy of their gender nor their title. Oh, how they moaned—they were worse than children fighting over scraps. She sent her maid to bring them to her. (Now, by this time Judith had managed to change how her slaves and servants were treated. No more were they beaten or whipped or starved, and they were permitted some freedoms to choose to marry and bear children. It caused a scandal, but the productivity of her fields and livestock grew exponentially. She knew it was because of her kindness but others believed G*D had blessed her because of her beauty and her devotion). The elders came to her and she berated them for many hours. Never before had a woman dared such a feat, yet Judith was no ordinary woman. She told the elders that she would do something that would go down through all the generations of Bethulia and beyond, and so she did.

When Judith had finished praying to G*D and making herself beautiful she left the gates of Bethulia and walked into the enemy camp. She called upon the memory of the great woman Rahab and promised to show the enemies a way into Bethulia if only she could speak directly with Holofernes. How could such an offer be refused, and from such a beautiful woman wearing so many jewels and accompanied by her own servant? Surely, they thought, this is a woman to be trusted. 

When Holofernes and Judith met, it was as though the world had turned on its axis. Judith knew that this day would bring a great nation to its end, send her name into eternity, and yet her carnal desires were aroused. She had often heard of this feeling, but it was never one she believed existed and now, feeling her chest expand and her stomach flip, she knew it could only be the work of demons. Why else would such a sensation come alive in sight of the enemy? Her resolve hardened. Yet, at the back of her mind, hidden and fighting in the recesses, she wondered if she couldn’t remake her plan just a little, just to experience this feeling of which she had heard so much, just the once. Her plan did change, just a little. Rather than acting immediately, she spent three days in the camp. She enjoyed Holofernes’ company. He was intelligent and kind, handsome and strong, gentle and funny. Yet his god was not her G*D and even though he would spare her whole people if they surrendered, just like so many other towns had done, he would destroy their places of worship and disrespect her G*D. So she bathed in the stream every night, to purify herself and to pray to G*D for strength and guidance. 

On the fourth day, Judith and Holofernes were in his tent and the time had come, she could delay no more for the people in Bethulia would surely be weak without water now. She lay down with Holofernes, enjoying food and drink with him. Their inhibitions gave way to merriment and laughter and a knot grew in Judith’s stomach. There it sat for the whole day as her hands gently stroked and caressed Holofernes’ face and arms and chest. Eventually, the salts in his wine sent him to sleep. Judith pulled the general’s sword from above his bedpost, gazed upon him one last time and, praying to G*D for strength, she struck his neck twice with all her might. 

When she returned to Bethulia with her maid, she ordered the council to display Holofernes’ head upon the parapet. As she gave the instructions she heard herself telling them to kill the enemy army when it flees. Later she would not recall why she said this, only that she was full of grief and anger and bloodlust and joy and relief and pride and too many other emotions to describe. 

Judith’s commands were enacted, her people were safe, the enemy camp was plundered, and for the first time since her wedding night the women danced around her and she sang surrounded by tambourines and cymbals. Her song was sung throughout Israel and her fame grew far and wide. She often had to refuse men seeking her hand in marriage, yet no man was ever as interesting as the man who occasionally entered her dreams at night.

In her final days as she looked back at her long and largely happy life she often wondered whether her G*D was working through Manasseh that day she decided to live for herself. G*D was strange she knew, but by forcing her hand she became strong so that he could work through her. Those thoughts were always just as quickly brushed aside, for why would G*D hurt her simply to cause her to be strong? No, her strength—she decided with her very last thought—came from within, from her own power, her belief in herself, her strength as a woman and her knowledge of how women should be able to live and what they should be able to do with their own lives. G*D had nothing to do with that and one day humanity would realize it. And with that thought, Judith of Bethulia died with a warm heart and a smile on her face.


End file.
